11 Saying Kids Today Just Don't Understand

One of the easiest ways to make yourself feel old is to use an expression from your childhood and watch your children's faces turn blank.

If you joke that someone chatty was "vaccinated with a phonograph needle" odds are nobody will laugh, and if you say "let's get down to brass tacks" they'll have no idea what you mean.

But not all phrases go out of style just because they're uncool. Some are related to technology that nobody uses anymore, while others have really obscure meanings. See if you recognize the meanings of every expression on this list!

1. Rewind that!

Mike Lynch Cartoons

The age of VCRs and VHS tapes is officially over now that they're not making them any more. But we still "rewind" DVDs and even live TV when we need to replay something.

2. When an alarm "rings"

Shutterstock

Odds are unless you have an old fashioned alarm clock, it doesn't ring to wake you up in the morning, it beeps. Still, in a world of digital noises we keep saying everything's "ringing."

3. Roll the window down

Matthew Dicks

Kids these days are so spoiled! Making the car window go up or down used to be a real arm workout, now we can do it with the touch of a button.

4. Using the CC feature when you send an email

aliexpress

Good luck explaining this one to your kids: it's hard enough for them to imagine a world before e-mail, but the idea of making copies manually with carbon paper must seem like ancient history.

5. Turn that off

Do you still own a TV with knobs? Probably not, but pretty much everyone still turns their electronics on and off, without ever thinking of what they're "turning." Now that we use buttons, we should start saying "push the TV on!"

6. Close but no cigar

Hawaii Magazine

You may not know this one either. Everyone learns growing up that this phrase means "almost but not quite," but not that people used to win cigars by playing carnival games. Now that makes sense!

Click the next page for more old-fashioned sayings that never go out of style!